Musician and TikTok phenomenon Addison Grace released their single, “I Wanna Be A Boy,” that discusses their own intimate tour with gender. Throughout writing the song and exploring what gender truly meant to them, Addison was able to discover their pronouns – he/they – and come out as nonbinary. Addison sings, “I guess I wanna be a boy,” coming full terms with this sincere and profound message.
Listen to “I Wanna Be A Boy” HERE.
Addison pondered with never releasing the song past his own social media, but after posting it online and observing the feedback, he knew that it deserved an appropriate debut. While speaking with B Drop, Addison states, “I initially started writing it when I was questioning a lot of things about myself. I’m very open with how I identify online and I’ve always openly been a queer creator, queer musician, and at that time I was really not understanding how I identified with my gender and how I felt about it, and so it started off as a song about gender roles and how I was jealous of guys and how they got to have certain things I couldn’t have. With time, I realized it was very much me explaining — in song form — that I wasn’t a girl and that I was nonbinary instead.
“A lot of people ended up relating to the song. I had trans men relating to it saying “I’ve always felt like that.” I’ve had trans women being like “I used to deny I was a woman and I wanted to be a boy; I wanted to be “normal” — quote, unquote. I even had my friends who were born female and identify as female feel that way because they felt they were a tomboy and never fit in with the “girlie girls” so to speak.” He continues, “Even though, for me, it’s a song about gender identity and finding myself in that way, I think really at the core — it becomes a song about not understanding yourself and wishing so desperately that you could and it’s a very vulnerable song for that reason.”
The cover art for the piece showcases several images of Addison while they were growing up, at different time periods. He talks about this, saying, “I feel like a lot of my work recently has been about growing up and about those awkward moments in your life, so for this song, I wanted it to be a collage of my face growing up. I didn’t want it to be something someone had drawn. I wanted it to be realistic so I searched through a bunch of scrapbooks and I found pictures of two-year old me, 10-year old me, 15-year old me and a picture of me from last year and we ended up crafting it all together because I’ve always loved the idea of putting photos together and it makes something else. I wanted to put stickers and all that because when you’re finding yourself, it feels like these weird puzzle that don’t fit quite right, so I wanted it to look slightly off… I really love it and it feels really nostalgic to me.”
The journey of coming out as non-binary for Addison was a difficult road and is something that he aims to inspire others with. They strive to empower individuals with the power to live their own lives as genuinely as possible. Through sharing his own journey, Addison nurtures the idea that gender identity is a voyage that they went on and hope that others can embark on as well.
More about Addison Grace
With an outstanding 3.8 million followers on TikTok, almost 400k followers on Instagram and close to 200k YouTube subscribers, Addison Grace become an online sensation through hard work and dedication. He began his journey online with an iPhone 6 and a dream, often encouraging his own audiences to follow their dreams despite their situations. Addison stands as waterproof that anyone can become an artist if they’re dedicated to the craft, stating, “You’re enough and what you’re doing is enough.”
As an activist for the LGBTQIA+ community, upcoming artists and mental health, Addison is known for disclosing his own individual experiences living with ADHD. He makes sure to communicate to his fanbases that “normal” is a made-up concept, and that the truth is very real. They transmit the importance of the truth with “I Wanna Be A Boy,” which you can stream everywhere now.
